Something Beautiful
by Ishimaru Natsumi
Summary: She had been asked by Queen Frigga herself for a favor. 'Watch over Loki for me. I fear that I am no longer welcome in my son's eyes. But not you, my dear Verdandi. He could never hate you.' Who was she to refuse?
1. Chapter 1

Verdandi was a common servant girl. She had served the royal family for many years. She had grown from a young child into the beautiful woman she was now inside the palace walls. She had no memories of her birth parents or even a picture to remember them by. She was found by a young woman named Embla, a servant who worked in the palace, and had called her 'mother' ever since.

She had been raised alongside Thor and Loki, for there weren't many children inside the palace. Her mother Embla had been friends with Queen Frigga for hundreds of years and had come to her for advice when she had found Verdandi. She and Loki used to play pranks on poor, unsuspecting Thor. They had been the best of friends. Causing mischief and having many adventures. It wasn't long before everything changed.

She had been close to Loki and Thor when they were young but they had grown farther apart when duties began to pile on the young princes once they had become old enough to understand their duties to realm and Verdandi began learning the ways of being a servant inside the palace. Their days had filled with many different tasks, and they could no longer spend time with each other as they used to.

So the days when they use to run in the Queen's garden turned into those of training and learning. And so, the young princes had forgotten Verdandi, but she had not forgotten them. Not even when Thor was banished or when Loki fell and his family mourned his death, she wouldn't forget them. They were too precious to her.

But one day, she had been asked by Queen Frigga herself for a favor.

_'Please watch over him for me. I fear that I am no longer welcome in my son's eyes. But not you, my dear Verdandi. He could never hate you. You are too special to him and the only friend he has.'_

And that was how Verdandi found herself in the prisons of Asgard at night, scrubbing the floors so as to keep him company without his knowing. She knew how Loki would get if he found out the truth. Her long, curly raven black hair was tied up but some ran over her shoulder, refusing to comply. Her servant's uniform, a plain white dress that reached her ankles with sleeves ending at her elbows with a golden band around her waist and neck, was tied so that it would not get dirty on the prison floor.

He had paid her no heed as she scrubbed in front of his cell. She thinks he doesn't even remember her. Yet, she could not help but stare. His emerald eyes were entranced in whatever story he was reading, his eyes quickly scanning over the text. It was a small leather-bound book, one that could be held in one hand with ease. It showed usage as if it had been read many time, but was treated with care.

It was a familiar book, one she remembered her mother reading to her, Thor, and Loki a long time ago. It had been a favorite of hers and Loki, and would constantly ask her mother to read it to them. It had been one of her favorite past times with the princes and one of her most cherished memories.

"That one's one of my favorites," she couldn't help but say. She watched as his piercing emerald eyes lifted from the small brown book and meet her soft lilac ones. They were searching in their gaze. They soon filled with warmth as happy childhood memories were brought forth, a small smile at the edge of his lips.

He shuts the book and stands from the corner he had been leaning on and walked back to his small pile of books. They were each different in color and size.

"I find it frightfully dull. I am about to give up on reading it," he mutters but she hears it all the same.

"You haven't changed at all have you, Loki?" she says wistfully with a small smile. When he was young, Loki tended not to bother with books that could not hold his interest. Though that one storybook had always been a favorite of his, just as much as it was hers.

"One does eventually tire of reading the same book over and over again. Don't you agree, Verdandi?"

"But of course. Would you rather I tell you a story?" she had missed this, spending time with him and Thor.

"As you can see Verdandi," he said, spreading his arms, "I have nothing else to do here."

"Well come on then, don't just stand there!" she said with a hint of excitement.

Gracefully, he walked to a spot in front of her and sat down with his legs crossed. She dumped her brush inside the bucket she had brought with her, deeming her chores finished and quickly untied her dress and sat in front of him on the steps leading to his cell.

_"There was a time long ago..."_

* * *

And so every night after that, Verdandi would have a new tale to tell Loki, never once repeating the same story. After she would be done with her washing, she would sit on the steps to his cell and spin a new tale of princesses, knights of valor, sorcerers, and so on. Each night she could see his anticipation no matter how much it was hidden underneath layers of indifference. She knew him better than he thought.

Some tales are ones she's heard as a child. Some are from books she had read or stories she's heard in passing. And sometimes they're stories she made just for him. With each story she could see his eyes, wide with wonder, as her tales came to life in his head. Words came to life with her own silver tongue. She enjoyed spending time with him. She missed the times when she and the brothers had not a care in the world except each other. Where they would chase each other in the Queen's personal gardens or take naps together after hours of play.

One night, as she was leaving the young prince with her new tale, one of the guards that stood not far from Loki's cell commented to her of her stories.

"We watch him you know? It is our duty. But even us guardsmen can tell the effect your tales have on Prince Loki since he was brought here. He is calm. Prince Thor visits in the afternoons and he can see it as well. We have told him of your tales and sends his thanks to you."

At those words, she couldn't help but beam. That was the biggest compliment she had ever received and she was thankful to the brave guard. She had began doubting that her tales had bored Loki, but with the guard's reassuring words she walked out with a new spring to her step.

Her head already concocting a new tale for the next evening.

* * *

"Verdandi! Verdandi!"

She turned from where she was walking down the large halls and met with two familiar baby blue eyes.

"Good day, Prince Thor. Can I be of service?" she asked, her hands clasped in front of her, and her head bowing silently.

"Nay. I wish to thank you for what you have done for my brother. Not many would have stood up to him because of what he has done. So many are scared of him, but not you Verdandi. You never were. And for that I am grateful and forever in your debt, dear Verdandi."

"It was no trouble really. I was just…helping an old friend."

* * *

She had not seen it coming.

Asgard was attacked by the dark elves, the ones she had read in stories and passing. They had been prepared in their invasion, and had quickly overrun the palace and had somehow destroyed the protective barrier shielding it.

Queen Frigga had passed during the dark elf invasion. She had been protecting Thor's fair maiden, Lady Jane, when she fell, her injuries far too grievous. It had been Verdandi and Thor who had found the Queen in her chambers, Lady Jane failing to tend to her wounds. Thor had gone after the one called Malekith while she tried to save the Queen's life, but it was for naught. The Queen passed and Asgard was left to mourn.

"I miss her mother." she weeps to her mother.

"As do I, child. As do I." Embla could only say. She had lost a good friend.

* * *

She walked in just as a guard had finished delivering the news to Loki and promptly leaving the fallen prince. She hesitates, expecting to see some reaction, some emotion from the son the Queen favored. Yet she finds none. He returns to the book he had been reading and says nothing.

And for that, she can't help but hate him.

When she finally finds herself scrubbing the floor outside his cell, she looks in and finds him unfazed, as if nothing is wrong. As if his mother had not died and sacrificed herself to save Asgard. As if she meant nothing to him.

She thought he had loved his mother, the two near inseparable. The Queen had taught him magic, had taught him her unique fighting style after admonishing him that his lean stature and intelligence were not compatible with Asgard's. That there was no such thing as fairness in battle, for the one who cheats and tricks wins.

Whilst his father favored Thor and his fighting prowess, a perfect, golden example of an Asgardian, his mother favored his intelligence and natural talent with magic. She was the one who encouraged his studies, knowing full well the repercussions for teaching her son what was thought to be a woman's art. Thor may have been Odin's son, but Loki had been Frigga's.

_'How dare he! His own mother is gone and he sheds not a single tear!'_

She throws her brush into her bucket and stomps up the stairs to his cell. Her hands are clenched at her sides as her molten gaze threatens to burst him into flames. No. This cannot be the Loki she knew. The Loki she knew loved his mother dearly, and would have gladly died for her if it meant that she would live.

"How dare you! Queen Frigga has passed and yet you shed not a tear for her!" she could not help the tears that flooded her cheeks. Had Loki changed that much? Did the revealing of his heritage have such an impact on him that he denounced all those he called family?

He continued to throw the object he held in in his hand into the air and catching without as much as glance to her. She noticed that he had not moved from the same position and had played with the same object for the last two hours, but quickly forgot in her rage.

"ANSWER ME!" she screamed as she slammed her hand on the magic barrier that separated them.

With that, the spell surrounding his cell vanished and she could not help but gasp at the scene.

Rather than a calm and collected Loki, she saw him utterly broken, sitting against the wall opposite the barrier, with his furniture in pieces around him. There was smeared blood across the floor, and the books were ripped, papers scattered all over the cell.

He looked up at her, trembling. His face was tear-stained, eyes red and swollen from crying, hair a frightful mess, and she spotted a cut on his foot from where he stepped on broken glass.

In a shaking, small voice, he said, "Please...tell me a story." Her eyes widened. He had never sounded so...broken before. And in that instant, Verdandi took back all the words she had spoken against him. This was the Loki she knew.

His eyes filled with fresh tears as his hand reached to stop them from falling down his face, failing miserably.

"Tell me something beautiful...please!"

_How could she refuse?_


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Here's an extra chapter to this story! I realized that it needed an epilogue, so I hope you enjoy it. This chapter is a bit creative with what happened in the actual movie. So if you notice something different, I did that on purpose. And I apologize in advance if any of the characters seem a bit OOC, I tried my best.

XxX

Her promise was now complete.

XxX

Verdandi couldn't help but stare at the empty cell in front of her. There was no God of Mischief contained within its white walls and all that was left was the destruction he had created in his moment of grief. The once impregnable magic barrier was gone, leaving nothing but whispers of its inhabitant.

She walked slowly, carefully so as to not step on the glass covering the floor. The vanity was overturned, the furniture left in shambles, the bed broken in half, and there, hiding inconspicuously underneath a broken piece of furniture, was the small story book that Loki had been reading not a few weeks before.

Out of all the things left broken in disrepair, the small book was left unharmed in Loki's carnage.

She gently picked it up from the wreckage. The Tale of the Norns: The Three Ladies of Fate. It was from this book that she had come to acquire her namesake, Verdandi Embladóttir.

It was the reason it was her favorite and had many a time asked Loki and her mother to read it to her.

And now Loki was gone.

He had apparently left with Thor in chains after the latter had asked him for his help. And as always, Verdandi couldn't help but smile, she was left to clean up their mess.

XxX

She was cleaning the floors of the Healing Rooms when she heard it. A small hiss of pain. It wouldn't have bothered her if she wasn't alone but the rooms were currently empty and the sun had gone down an hour prior. The healers had moved the sick and injured to private rooms and had left her to her duties. So, who would be here at this late an hour?

Quietly, she dropped her brush, and made her way to the supply room where Mistress Eir kept her many potions, herbs, bandages, and bed things. And there, lo and behold, holding his chest as if in pain, stood Loki. She quickly tried to hide her gasp but failed. His head snapped up at her quiet outburst and his eyes widened at her.

"Verdandi..." he whispered her name as if in prayer.

"Loki….What happened to you? Why are you here?" she couldn't help but notice the blood that stained the marble floor.

Loki, finally realizing she was who she was and would do him no harm, leaned against the wall and slowly slid to the floor. She quickly rushed at him, her body falling in front of him to see the extent of the damage.

"A dark elf…..the one that...the one that killed Mother….."

"He did this to you?" She said, her eyes widening as she beheld the wound up close. He merely nodded. Slowly, she helped the young prince out from his many leathers until he was left bare from the waist up. The wound was still bleeding, the red substance leaking out sluggishly, which was good. She lifted the sleeves of her dress.

"Loki, I need for you to lie on your back. Can you do that for me?" she ordered gently. He looked as if in thought then slowly made to lie on the cold marble floor. Nodding in thanks, she quickly put her hands on his chest.

"Now Loki this will hurt a bit. I've been training with Mistress Eir to become a Healer for the last two decades but I have yet to learn all she has to teach me. I apologize in advance, my Prince."

And with that she felt her seidr come to life at her command and began to chant a healing spell. She felt rather than heard Loki groan from the pain and after a while release a sigh of relief. Underneath her hands she could feel the shredded muscles stitch back together under her gentle touch.

It wasn't until ten minutes later that she felt the last of the skin close up. She lifted her hands and, where there once was a sickening ugly stab wound, there was now pale flesh once more now marred by a jagged scar that reached from the bottom of his pectorals to the right side of the his belly button. All in all, her finest work.

"I apologize, Loki. I fixed most of the damage but the scar shall forever remain." She said as her hands ghosted over the scar.

"A sacrifice I am willing to pay. Thank you, Verdandi." The smile he gave her was small, barely reaching his eyes, but it meant so much to her after seeing him with an indifferent expression for the last few hundred years. In that smile she could see her Loki again.

"A kindness for an old friend that can never repay for what he has done for me," she answered gently.

With a flick of his wrist, the blood vanished from the floor leaving it pristine once more. With her help, she helped him back into his leathers and armor. Her hands were gentle as the scar was still a bit tender and she really didn't want to agitate it. And in no time at all, he stood, dressed and regal once more.

"There! Now you look like a proper prince of Asgard!"

He smiled a bit sheepishly before he stoned his expression. She noticed the immediate change and looked up to find him looking out to the door.

"Verdandi, can you promise me something?"

"What is it Loki?" his new demeanor was a bit foreboding.

"Do not tell Thor you found me here." He said, looking back down at her as he made his request.

"And why not?" She asked, hands at her hips.

"Thor believes I have died in Svartalfheim."

"Why would you do that to him?!" she nearly shrieked, but was stopped when Loki placed a hand over her mouth.

"I refuse to go back to being imprisoned, Verdandi! Our deal was for me to aid Thor in stopping Malekith but as soon as that was done I was to be returned to my cell here in Asgard. I refuse to be used as tool or a means to end. Do you understand?"

She nodded. As much as Loki had enjoyed her stories, she knew that he had hated being there, the two separated by a magic, glowing barrier, never to hold each other as they used to as children.

"So what are your plans now?"

"The All-Father's Odinsleep has been put off for long enough. I believe in a matter of hours he shall succumb to it. And when he does, I shall take the throne as my own."

Verdandi's mouth dropped as she heard his proclamation. This was borderline treason!

"And you my dear Verdandi shall help me."

WHAT?

"I will take the All-Father's form over my own, so I will need you to keep Odin hidden so that no one becomes suspicious. Will you help me in this?"

She sighed. He would continue even without her help. She really shouldn't do this….

_'Please, watch over him for me.'_

Those words. She looked up and stared at the young prince. She had promised the late queen she would watch over Loki and had believed her promise complete when he had left, but as she stared into those emerald orbs she could see that her promise was to be for as long as she lived.

"Alright. I will help you, Loki Odinson."

_"__I couldn't ask for more, _Verdandi Embladóttir. Now, here's what I need you to do…."

XxX

"My lord, we found a body." The guard said to the All-Father, a stretcher with a body covered in a white piece of fabric at his feet.

"Loki…"

The guard nodded as Odin made his way down the steps to where his youngest son laid on the Throne Room floor. Walking past the guard, Odin lifted the white sheet and beheld his second son, his skin pale from death's greedy grasp. His eyes were dark and shadowed and he could see the slightest hint of blue tinge to his skin. The wound was large and seemed to go right through. His hair, once kept in a clean and orderly state without a single hair out of place, were now messy ringlets framing his son's face. It was a messy and horrible sight.

Odin exhaled, the hand that grasped the sheet shaking violently. First, his loving wife, and now his youngest son has been claimed by the Valkyries and taken to Valhalla. It was too much. Were the fates truly this cruel? Was this to be his legacy?

With a clatter, Gungnir fell from his grip and landed on the floor as his body began to fall. The guard made no move to help his fallen king but looked on as the body of Loki began to rise. Odin watched on in shocked awe as Loki's dead body began to get to his feet and looked at him dead in the eye.

His wound was still bleeding, the red liquid dripping sluggishly on the clean marble floor. His face was still ashen in pallor and his eyes still looked sunken in appearance. Overall, he still looked dead. But he rose as if he still lived.

"I only wanted to make you proud….and this what I get?...All I've done for Asgard….All I've done for you…You let mother die….you let me die….and you call yourself my father….pathetic…..sentiment…."

And with those words, the All-Father fell into Odinsleep.

XxX

"Was that really necessary?" Loki asked the guard as he helped Odin into a bed in a special room of the palace concealed from Heimdall's sight. He watched as the usual shield that covered the All-Father rise to cocoon him protectively.

"It needed to be said." The guard answered bluntly.

"I just feel as if he was in a lot of pain." He chastised. "He's lost half his family in the course of a few weeks."

"That was the point in all this. The All-Father has made many mistakes that needed to be rectified." The guard said as he made no attempt to help his king.

Loki pinned a harsh gaze at the guard but said nothing. With a sigh he looked back to Odin, who had yet to twitch a single muscle.

"So this is what the Odinsleep looks like. He looks so frail." He said as he laid an ashen hand on Odin's own tanned one. His own hand was still pale with death's kiss and it was unnerving.

"You get used to it."

With another sigh Loki released the hand and looked back towards the guard. He put a hand to his hip and flicked his hair away from his face.

"Can you change me back now? I hate feeling this tall." Loki asked the guard expectantly. The body felt awkward. The limbs were too long and were hard to control. And all these clothes and armor were making it very hard to move around.

"Give me your hand." The guard demanded. Without hesitance, Loki did so. The change was immediate.

Both glowed green before it fell away like a curtain. Loki began to shrink and revealed underneath the body of Verdandi. The guard grew several inches and the magic underneath revealed Loki.

"Your magic never ceases to amaze me Loki." Verdandi said with a small smile.

"I apologize for having to give you most of my magic. Odin needed to think I was but a guard and my magic would have given me away I'm afraid. It didn't hurt you?"

"No, Loki. Your magic was…amazing. It was very protective but I still felt how heavy it was."

"Alright." And with another flick of his wrist Odin's twin now stood before her. "I think it's about time we greet Thor don't you think?" He asked as he held Gungnir in one hand and held out his other arm to her. She grasped it and they both began to make their way to the Throne Room.

"As you command, My King."

XxX

_Endir._


End file.
